1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a file management method for content files stored on a recording medium, a recording/playback apparatus that implements that method, and a recording medium on which a program is recorded in order to load that file management method, and more particularly enables links to be maintained between content files.
2. Description of the Related Art
Demand continues to grow for digital content distribution services that employ communications and broadcasting.
For example, a newspaper article distribution service has been conceived of whereby newspaper articles are downloaded each morning to a mobile phone and recorded onto a recording medium connected to that mobile phone, and an article can be read when wished by connecting that recording medium to another device such as a television set. Also, an electronic book service has been conceived of whereby a novel is divided into chapters, and charging/downloading is performed chapter by chapter.
As a concrete example of a newspaper article distribution service, a method can be considered whereby newspaper articles are written as HTML format files, and one day's worth of HTML files and accompanying image files or audio files are distributed as a single package. With a service that distributes related contents as a single package in this way, the distributed contents are generally recorded on a recording medium with a directory created for each package.
In this case, in the distributed package, an accompanying image file or audio file is linked to an HTML file. Moreover, a case can also be considered where a particular HTML file is linked to other HTML files. Furthermore, although links are generally implemented as closed within a particular package, there are also cases where a link may be provided to an HTML file or image/audio file belonging to another package. A concrete example that can be given is a case where a particular newspaper article is linked to an article distributed the previous day as a related article.
However, in an apparatus that receives content distribution, an original file name may be assigned to a content file in order to enable content recording and playback to be performed efficiently with simple processing, and therefore the directory name and file name in the file system of content recorded in the receiving apparatus may not necessarily match reference names written within other content linked to that content. As a result, there is a problem of cases arising in which a link destination cannot be specified.
Also, even in cases where a link destination can be specified, it may not be possible to maintain the link destination if the directory name or file name in the file system is subsequently changed by the user.
Moreover, even in cases where a link destination can be specified, unlike an interactive service such as Web browsing, in a download service whereby referencing is performed locally on a recording medium, the link destination file may not necessarily be present on the recording medium.
Heretofore, there have been no digital content distribution services that take the above-described link destination specification and maintenance into consideration.